Two expanding condensates. The first frames show a phase contrast picture of two trapped condensates, followed by their ballistic expansion after the magnetic trap has been turned off (observed with resonant absorption imaging). In the early frames, the absorption was saturated (red color) and the separation between the condensates is not visible. Since the trapped clouds were much more tightly confined in the radial direction, their internal energy was released mainly in the radial direction during expansion. The two condensates overlapped due to the slow axial expansion. After 40 msec, an interference pattern was observed. The period of the interference fringes is the matter wavelength associated with the relative motion of the two condensates. Fringes are not visible in this movie because of the lower resolution and because of the blurring due to line-of-sight integration across the cloud.

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